Moving to the Netherlands: The Complete Guide

Moving to the Netherlands comes down to four things: somewhere to live, registering with your municipality (which is how you get your BSN), health insurance, and a bank account. Three of those are routine paperwork that follows a fixed order. The fourth — finding somewhere to live — is genuinely hard, and it is the part that will take the longest and cause the most stress. If you are an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen you need no visa and no residence permit. If you are not, that gets arranged before you arrive, usually by your employer.

This page covers the national rules, which are the same whether you land in Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Groningen. Where something is city-specific — mainly where you register and what the rental market looks like — we use Amsterdam as the example, because that is the city we cover in depth.

Can you move to the Netherlands? Visa and residence

This is the one question where the answer splits sharply by passport.

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens. You can move to the Netherlands, live here and work here without a visa or a residence permit. The IND is explicit that you do not need a residence permit and do not need to register with them. Your only obligation is to your municipality, and only if you are staying longer than four months.

There are conditions attached to staying beyond three months, but they are economic rather than bureaucratic: you work at least 40% of a full working week, or earn at least 50% of the applicable social assistance benefit. If you are not working, you need income of at least the Dutch minimum wage. Students need enrolment, insurance and sufficient funds. In practice, if you have a job here, you meet them.

Everyone else. You will normally need a residence permit, and usually an MVV (a long-stay entry visa) as well. The two are applied for together, and here is the part people miss: you do not apply — your employer does. Only an employer recognised as a sponsor by the IND can submit a highly skilled migrant application. The permit fee is €423.00, the IND has 90 days to decide, and once the MVV is approved you collect the sticker at a Dutch embassy or consulate within three months.

Some nationalities are exempt from the MVV requirement and only need the permit itself: Australia, Canada, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vatican City and Switzerland, alongside EU and EEA member states.

If your permit is approved, you will also need to collect a residence endorsement sticker in some situations — that is a separate appointment with the IND.

Finding somewhere to live — the hard part

Be realistic about this one, because everything else on this page depends on it. You cannot register with a municipality without an address, and you cannot get a BSN without registering. Housing is not just the hardest step; it is the gate.

The Dutch rental market is among the tightest in Europe, and Amsterdam is its sharpest end. Expect:

• 4–12 weeks of searching, and more if you are picky about area
• €1,500–2,500/month for a one-bedroom in or near the centre
• Landlords requiring an income of about three times the monthly rent
• A deposit of one to two months' rent

Rents are still rising. The most recent official figure from CBS, the national statistics office, is that renting a home in July 2025 cost 4.9% more than a year earlier — 5.1% in social housing, 4.4% in the free sector. Note that CBS publishes percentage changes, not average price levels; anyone quoting you a precise national "average rent" is not getting it from the official statistics.

A hard rule worth stating plainly: never pay a deposit before you have seen the property and signed a contract. Rental scams targeting new arrivals are common and they follow this exact script.

Our guide to finding a flat in Amsterdam covers where to search, what landlords ask for, and how to move fast enough to actually get a place.

Registering with the gemeente and getting your BSN

Once you have an address, this is the step everything else hangs on.

If you are coming to live in the Netherlands for longer than four months, you must register with your municipality (gemeente) — and you must do it within five days of arriving. In Amsterdam that means an appointment at a Stadsloket. Book it early: appointments fill up weeks ahead, especially in August and September.

The important thing to understand is that the BSN is not something you apply for. When you register, the municipality issues your burgerservicenummer automatically as part of the process, along with your entry in the Personal Records Database (BRP). You walk out with it the same day.

Your BSN is the key to everything else: a bank account, a job, health insurance, a GP, tax, and DigiD.

Staying less than four months? Then you cannot register as a resident. You can instead register as a non-resident in the RNI (the Non-residents Records Database), which also gets you a BSN. Note that this is optional, not an obligation — but you will likely need it if you plan to work or open an account.

Full detail, including exactly what documents to bring: how to get a BSN in Amsterdam. If you later move house within the Netherlands, you must report the change of address — that has its own deadline.

Health insurance — compulsory, with a real deadline

Everyone who lives and works in the Netherlands is legally required to have Dutch basic health insurance (basisverzekering). This is not advice; it is a legal obligation, and it does not care about your nationality.

The trigger is working here: having a Dutch employer, working for them on a regular basis, and paying Dutch wage tax. If you are moving here but not working, register with your municipality and the Sociale Verzekeringsbank will determine whether you are insured under the Dutch system. If you work for a foreign employer, you may be able to keep your home-country cover — this is one of the few genuine exceptions.

You have four months. Take the policy out as soon as you can, and in any case within four months.

Here is what actually happens if you miss that window, because it is widely misdescribed: you are simply uninsured for the gap. You pay your own medical costs for that period. Your premium starts from the day you take the policy out, not retroactively — so you do not owe backdated premiums, but you also get nothing back for care you needed in the meantime. It is not a fine so much as a hole in your cover.

The fine comes separately. The CAK is the body that makes sure everyone in the Netherlands has insurance. If you have none, it writes to you; you then have three months to sort it out. If you do not, the fine is €529.74 (2026), indexed annually. A second fine follows after another three months, after which the CAK takes out a policy on your behalf and withholds the premium from your income for twelve months.

Budget roughly €130–160/month for basic cover, plus the compulsory excess (eigen risico) of €385 per year for 2026 — the first €385 of your annual healthcare costs are yours to pay.

Our health insurance guide covers how to choose a policy, and what the basic package does and does not include. Register with a GP (huisarts) before you need one — they keep waiting lists.

Opening a bank account

You need a Dutch account with a Dutch IBAN. Salaries are paid into one, rent comes out of one, and a surprising number of everyday systems quietly assume you have one.

On the BSN question, the rule is narrower than the folklore: if you pay tax in the Netherlands, you need a BSN to open a bank account — because banks are legally required to report account data to the tax authority. It is not a universal requirement, but for anyone moving here to work, it amounts to one in practice. If your ID does not show your BSN, you can ask your municipality for an extract (uittreksel) that does.

If a bank turns you down for an ordinary account, you have a right to a basic payment account (basisbetaalrekening), provided you have a genuine connection to the Netherlands — living, studying or working here. Banks can still refuse on anti-money-laundering grounds, if you already hold an account, or if you have a relevant criminal conviction within the past eight years. A basic account comes without an overdraft, credit card or savings account.

See the best bank accounts for expats for which banks open fastest and what they charge.

Work, tax, and the 30% ruling

If you were recruited from abroad for a job here, you may qualify for the 30% ruling — officially the expat scheme — which lets your employer pay part of your salary tax-free to compensate for the costs of relocating.

The headline numbers for 2026: the rate is still 30%, the minimum taxable salary is €48,013 (or €36,497 if you are under 30 with a master's degree), and the maximum duration is five years.

The rate is changing: from 1 January 2027 it drops from 30% to 27%. The salary thresholds also rise in 2027, to €50,436 and €38,388.

Two things worth knowing before you count on it. Your employer applies, not you — and the application must go in within four months of your start date for it to be backdated to day one. And there is a distance rule: you must have lived more than 150km from the Dutch border for at least 16 of the 24 months before you started work here, which rules out a lot of people who moved from just over the Belgian or German border.

Our 30% ruling guide covers eligibility and the application in full.

What it costs

The honest answer is that it depends almost entirely on rent, and rent depends on the city. A few anchors:

• Rent is the dominant cost — €1,500–2,500/month for a one-bedroom in central Amsterdam, meaningfully less outside the Randstad
• Health insurance — €130–160/month, plus the €385/year excess
• Deposit — one to two months' rent, up front
• Residence permit — €423.00 if you need one

Set aside more than you think for the first two months. You will likely be paying a deposit, a first month's rent, and possibly temporary accommodation, all before your first Dutch salary lands.

What order to do it all in

The sequence matters, because several steps are locked behind earlier ones:

1. Sort your visa or permit — before you arrive, if you need one
2. Find an address — you cannot register without one
3. Register with the municipality within five days — this is where your BSN comes from
4. Open a bank account — needs the BSN
5. Take out health insurance — within four months, but do it immediately
6. Apply for DigiD — needs the BSN; it is your login to almost every government service
7. Register with a GP — before you need one

For the full task-by-task version of this, organised by stage — before you arrive, first week, first month, first three months — use our Amsterdam moving checklist. This page is the map; that one is the to-do list.